New Shun 1730

After the second memorial was sent away, Liu Yu patrolled the Yellow River embankment for seven or eight days.

Standing on the high embankment, picking up binoculars and looking at the opposite side, which is only separated by a river, the river patrol workers in Funing County are as if they are facing an enemy invasion, fearing the coming rainy season.

Several officials regulating the Huaihe River who had met in Qingkou before were also on the opposite embankment.

Liu Yu looked back at the second embankment of the Yellow River, which was like a hill. The fields scattered between the second embankment and the first embankment were full of various crops, but he didn't know whether they could be harvested this year.

Hundreds of years of scouring and sedimentation since the Song Dynasty have made the Yellow River much higher than the plains. No one knows, maybe one day the Yellow River will burst and flow northward, and the good Jinan may be renamed Henan.

If water transportation is not abolished and the Yellow River breaks through in the future, and people go north from Lankao, maybe the imperial court can choose the Yellow River to return home.

Now that the water transport has been abolished, the Yellow River is really going to burst. If we really take the northern route to seize the Daqing River and enter the sea, I am afraid the imperial court will calculate it and think that is it.

In addition, if the salt reform in Huainan and Huaibei is successful, the land reform in Huainan and northern Jiangsu can be successful, which will tilt the balance of the court's decision-making even more.

Thinking about this catastrophe in which millions of people have died and tens of millions of people have been affected, it may be this year, it may be ten years from now, or it may be decades from now, it is like a handful that can fall at any time, but there is no way of knowing when it will fall. Sharp sword, Liu Yu could only mutter a couple of times towards the Yellow River.

"Mother River, Mother River...hey."

Shi Shiyong and Liu Yu have known each other for many years. Back then, Liu Yu was always chatting and laughing when facing such a behemoth that seemed to have overtaken it for thousands of years. But now, facing the turbulent river, he sighed so much, and looked at his back with an indescribable feeling of powerlessness and loneliness.

"My lord, you don't have to sigh. Now that sea transportation is booming and water transportation is abolished, the court can save three to five million taels of money every year to dredge the canal. This also means that it can spend an additional three to five million taels on the Yellow River river construction. People. He cannot defeat Heaven, but the Duke is doing his best."

Liu Yu just smiled, shook his head with a wry smile, and thought to himself, which of the things he did did not indirectly determine the fate of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people?

It is said that a gentleman cooks far away from home. However, if the Yellow River bursts in the future, the imperial court will finally decide not to return to the old path and go southwest to north of Shandong. The hundreds of thousands of drowned and starved souls along the way will be at least 50% of their own responsibility. , in the navy, and in a series of reforms in southern and northern Jiangsu.

"The reform must continue. The imperial court should improve the fiscal and taxation system and ensure sufficient food reserves to cope with disasters that may occur at any time. The deeper the reform goes, the more silver the imperial court saves, and one less disaster victim may die. Otherwise, One hundred thousand people will die this year and eighty thousand people will die next year. These deaths that have become habitual will add up to tens of millions, right?"

For a long time, facing the water of the Yellow River, Liu Yu seemed to comfort himself, cheering up his weak and emotionally disturbed self.

Shi Shiyong also sighed, thinking that it seemed that the Duke also had a moment of vulnerability. Someone in the imperial court had already come up to discuss the hardships of sailing to the South Seas, and prepared to say that "shipping and transportation are no different than animals", which is not the way to go.

This kind of dispute between great benevolence and small benevolence, great justice and small justice is really distressing. The root of many reforms comes from this: if no changes are made, the people who die every year will die "normally". Normally tens of thousands of people drown and tens of thousands of people starve to death, and no one is responsible. But if we want to reform the law, I'm afraid those problems will all fall on the reformers.

Just as he was about to say something more, there was the sound of horse hoofbeats in the distance. Shi Shiyong turned around and saw that the men sent to the capital had returned, followed by several guards from the Forbidden Palace.

There was no table to burn incense, and the person who delivered the edict was not in accordance with the rules. Moreover, it was not read out, but a secret edict was handed over to Liu Yu.

The rest of the people retreated far away, and Liu Yu opened the secret edict himself. The emperor wrote six words at the beginning to determine the title.

I can learn from my love for your loyalty.

Later, Liu Yu agreed to the idea of ​​​​playing with the salt merchants, and made Liu Yu firm in his determination to reform. I originally planned to start in Huaibei and then Huainan, step by step. Since Liu Yu is ready to uproot him, let Liu Yu go ahead and do it.

He also said that he was worried that Liu Yu's interest capital would be insufficient, so he sent another 500,000 yuan.

Liu Yu looked at the four words "loyalty can be learned" at the beginning of the secret edict, and he just wanted to laugh. In the eyes of the emperor, he was not a loyal person. Giving out such a big handle and accepting bribes was tantamount to handing the emperor a handle that could be used at any time but could not be explained clearly at all.

It's just that I have given enough clues. I have thought clearly and laid a good foundation. Once the emperor's health shows signs of failure, he will run away immediately.

This one is no different. It can be regarded as a scapegoat for the emperor, so he can continue to use it during his lifetime.

After closing the secret decree, Liu Yu turned around and bowed to the Yellow River, thinking that now that he had come this far, he could no longer retreat.

Now it is time to retreat if we do not advance. I hope that the canal transportation is abolished, the Huaihe River is repaired, and the salt tax reform in southern and northern Jiangsu is completed, so that the court can save enough money to deal with the possible catastrophe of the Yellow River bursting northward to Shandong.

I just hope that the Mother River, pitiful and pitiful for millions of people, will not break the bank within three to five years, and wait until the imperial government's coffers recover from repairing the Huaihe River, improving water transportation, and relocating water workers, etc. before breaking the bank.

Otherwise, if we don’t have money for disaster relief, we don’t know how many people will die. And maybe the emperor will be given a "warning from heaven" and himself a "warning from heaven to punish national thieves".

None of the people knew what the emperor's secret edict was. They only saw Liu Yu bowing to the Yellow River after completing the procedure of receiving the edict, and they were puzzled for a while.

After a long time, when Liu Yu finished worshipping the Yellow River and walked to the side of the crowd, he suddenly exhaled vigorously while pulling the reins, as if he had made a decision.

He jumped on his horse and shouted in a high-pitched voice, as if to wash away the depression just now: "Boys, follow me back to Haizhou!"

After that, he didn't even wait for the guards around him and the children's army who came with him, and rushed out first.

Shi Shiyong and others hurriedly got on their horses and chased after him.

There was dust all the way, and they rarely stopped. They arrived in Haizhou soon.

When they entered Haizhou again, the salt merchants had their own eyes and ears. They only said that the Duke of Xingguo had not stayed in the salt field for a long time in the past few days, but stayed on the bank of the Yellow River for several days. They really didn't know what his plan was.

The salt merchants were more and more confused. They couldn't understand it at all. They thought that such a big thing could be done in Haizhou, Yangzhou, or the salt field. They could understand it.

But why run to the Yellow River embankment?

I also heard that the children's army that came with Duke Xingguo has dispersed in the past few days, and some people are asking about private salt dealers.

What does the court mean by this?

Could it be that the emperor has repaired the Huai River and wants to repair the Yellow River embankment, and feels that the money he asked for in Yangzhou last time is too little, but he has already asked for it once, so it is not easy to ask for it again this time, so he asked Duke Xingguo to ask for money?

If you think so, it seems to be explained. Otherwise, why would the children's army investigate private salt dealers but not investigate official salt corruption?

Zheng Yuji, the general contractor of the salt industry in Haizhou, has not been idle these days. He sent the situation here to Yangzhou as fast as he could.

Huainan and Huaibei, at least in terms of salt, are prosperous together and ruined together, without any difference.

…………

Yangzhou, which received the news, was also in chaos a few days later.

Several major Huainan general contractors, abandoning their usual open and secret struggles, sat together to discuss the meaning of the court sending Liu Yu to Huaibei this time.

Judging from the list of the salt merchants' secret meeting this time, it feels that this gathering of salt merchants is too magical.

The He family of Tianbao Prefecture, the Yan family of Tianbo Prefecture, the Zhang family of Xijing, the Ma family of Datong, the Han family of Puzhou, the Wang family, the Zou family, the Zheng family, the Jiang family of Anhui...

Their relationship is not good on weekdays, the kind of bad that is not good.

The struggle between Qinjin merchants and Huizhou merchants began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and the merchants on both sides basically did not marry.

The fact that Qinjin merchants and Huizhou merchants can gather together to discuss things shows how serious this matter has become for salt merchants.

Historically, the "business registration and imperial examination dispute" in the Ming Dynasty was just a manifestation of the fierce struggle between the two sides, not the beginning of the struggle between the two sides.

Historically, Huizhou merchants eventually won comprehensively.

In this era, the two sides are evenly matched, and the winner has not yet been completely determined.

This has nothing to do with the fact that the nobles and royal families of Dashun are all from Shaanxi, at least not much.

The main reason is that the Qing Dynasty and Dashun started from different places.

The Qing Dynasty in history started from Liaodong, conquered Mongolia, and then went south to steal artifacts.

Today's Dashun was pushed back to Jingxiang, where it fought back desperately and pushed back to Liaodong step by step.

This made a difference.

To sweep Liaodong and fight against Northwest Mongolia, merchants were needed to assist in logistics. The opening of the Central Plains in the Ming Dynasty was the peak of the rise of these Qinjin merchants and their penetration into the Lianghuai salt industry.

The Qing Dynasty in history fought to the south, and the north was originally their home.

Dashun fought to the north and needed to go deep into Liaodong and Mongolia.

The Qing Dynasty in history did not need Qinjin salt merchants to help with logistics... At least in the first few decades of its founding, it was not very useful, and even if it was used, the scale was not that large.

When the Dashun Dynasty went north, it needed the help of the Qin and Jin salt merchants to do logistics... At least it was very necessary in the early stage of its founding.

So the wings of this butterfly led to the difference between this time and history.

In history, Hui merchants relied on geographical advantages and clan connections, but because the Qing Dynasty did not need Qin and Jin merchants to do logistics for the northward war in the early period, the Qin and Jin salt merchants declined.

Now, Hui merchants still rely on geographical advantages, clans, connections, and the accumulation of their ancestors for more than a hundred years, but they are only slightly better than those merchants in Shaanxi and Shanxi, and cannot achieve the almost "uniformity" in history.

The Ming Dynasty needed to guard against the north, especially after the Battle of Tumu, so in the special "merchant register", Qin and Jin merchants produced a total of 37 Jinshi and 82 Juren from the 14th year of Zhengtong to the last year of Chongzhen; while the "merchant register" of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui produced a total of 12 Jinshi and 35 Juren from the 14th year of Zhengtong to the last year of Chongzhen.

The Qing Dynasty was not so urgent in defending the north, so the number of Qin and Jin merchants in Yangzhou area who passed the imperial examinations was seriously reduced; in contrast, in Huizhou alone, there were 41 Jinshi and 94 Juren. As for other places, if the merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang are included, then the Qin and Jin merchants will be left out.

Similarly, this change in the military environment is very interesting in Dashun: in the first fifty years of the founding of the country, there were many merchants from Qin and Jin who passed the imperial examinations; but after fifty years of the founding of the country, there were fewer and fewer; after the founding of the country 80 years after the complete conquest of Mongolia in the north of the desert, the number of merchants who relied on fur, tea, loan, and alkaline noodles from Shaanxi and Shanxi was even smaller.

Hui merchants and Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants have different habits, or it can be said that it is difficult for Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants to adapt to the customs of Jiangnan.

Therefore, it is ridiculed as: high-heeled naan shoes stepping on mud, flat-headed robes with heels. He rushed to people with a scallion and pepper smell, and he didn't wait to hear that he was Lao Xi.

Huizhou merchants like to make friends with scholars, and are known as "Left Confucian and Right Merchant", so they thrive in Jiangnan.

If they continue to develop, in fact, after solving the problems of the Western Regions and the Rakshasa, Huizhou merchants will sooner or later completely drive away the merchants from Shaanxi and Shanxi.

At this juncture, it seems that they are almost evenly matched, but in fact, Huizhou advances and Shaanxi retreats - don't forget that in the first few decades of the founding of the Dashun Dynasty, the war in the north has been going on, and the system of salt merchants assisting in logistics has always been useful. So in fact, the merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi have been squeezed to the current evenly matched situation under the huge advantage of fifty years.

In fact, this is a defeat.

In fact, many Shaanxi merchants have fled to Sichuan: If I can't afford to provoke me, can't I hide? If Lianghuai doesn't keep me, I'll sell Sichuan salt!

Therefore, the problem of "Sichuan salt entering Chu" in the issue of smuggled salt can also be regarded as Shaanxi merchants failing to win the Lianghuai head-on, and turning to Sichuan for a "curve struggle".

After sorting out the relationship and contradictions between Yangzhou salt merchants, as well as the regional elements of the old-time chamber of commerce,

It is intuitively understandable that the salt merchants from Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Anhui can sit together this time. This is an old chamber of commerce era in Nagasaki, Japan, where the Ningbo Gang, Fuzhou Gang, and Zhangzhou Gang can fight to the death because of their regions.

Now, a ghost, the ghost of salt policy reform, is hovering over Lianghuai. In order to deal with this ghost, the He family of Tianbao Prefecture, the Yan family of Tianbo Prefecture, the Zhang family of Xijing, the Ma family of Datong, the Han family of Puzhou, the Wang family, the Zou family, the Zheng family, and the Jiang family of Anhui, abandoned the three hundred years of grievances that began in the 14th year of the Ming Dynasty and united.